


Closed Doors

by beschleunigte



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Captain Mikasa Ackerman, Commander Armin Arlert, F/M, Friends With Benefits, Library Sex, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-02
Updated: 2016-03-02
Packaged: 2018-05-24 07:10:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6145674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beschleunigte/pseuds/beschleunigte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is how Commander Arlert and Captain Ackerman "meet" behind closed doors.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Closed Doors

**Author's Note:**

> Enjoy this summary of sin y'all. *clenches fist*

This is how Commander Arlert and Captain Ackerman "meet" behind closed doors.

First, passionate. The way they used to read in the romance novels tucked behind beds in the barracks when they were still Armin and Mikasa, or in the movies—moving pictures—Armin said he had read about before. He could probably wax historic about them. He could probably wax historic about anything. They take things fast, too fast, on his office desk when the candles are half-burned and the curtains are drawn. With too-hard kisses and fingers tangled in hair, uniforms a mess and jackets thrown to the corner.

First, silence, save for heavy breaths, the rustle of clothes as they shed, the wooden creaks of the desk as they adjust and readjust themselves. Maybe it is like those moving pictures in the way Mikasa surveys him through the curtain of her bangs, feels the press of his forehead against hers as his arms cage her in. Or in the way that Armin doesn't need to do much to nudge her onto the desk, coax her legs open. How her hands slam against the tabletop when she leans back, or how he almost lovingly cradles the back of her neck to pull her in for another kiss when she finally fumbles with the buckles on her pants.

First, hard, like they could never imagine doing this with anyone else. Like they didn't know how they got here, didn't know when they would stop, if they would stop, if they wanted to. They don't think of it in terms of who takes whom, in spite of Mikasa being his subordinate. They're equals, complements. Brain and brawn, their comrades-in-arms would joke, but they aren't exactly wrong. So they take each other instead, with open shirts and pants halfway down their thighs or off altogether, nails and teeth in skin, mouths melded together, legs tangled around waist and the thrust, thrust, thrust that has Mikasa whining and pressing her face hard against Armin's neck, never looking at him directly.

They're trembling when they finish, strangled and almost voiceless. They stay folded in one another for a few moments after that, eyes closed but not shut, as if processing what they've done. As if asking themselves if they've started something irreversible. And then Armin tells her, in hushed tones, to wait, wait, and he cleans between her thighs with a warm washcloth before they dress in silence.

First, they don't have to think about straddling the line between intimacy and mindlessness.

They don't have to for second, either. Or third. Or fourth. They commit to silent agreements through touches of the hand and looks when they cross the training grounds, or during meetings with the rest of the squad leaders. They meet in inconvenient places, with the door locked. On desks, against walls, in bathtubs where and when they should be at peace with body and mind. They survey each other in the gaps between fingers and lips, like they know they aren't supposed to do this, for myriad reasons. Because it's not professional. Because it's inconvenient. Because, frankly, it's painful without a bed.

Because maybe they're both living with the paranoia that in some corner, Eren can see them, knows what they're up to.

But they want to anyway. Need to anyway.

The fifth time, they're at one of those gatherings in Sina, making nice with higher-ups, the Military Police, the Garrison, Queen Historia, smiling at jokes about how Mikasa's strength should have landed her in some new Royal Guard, and Armin gives her the look. Whether it's because of the red dress Historia has graciously lent her for the occasion, or some other invisible reason, she doesn't know. But Armin is hooking her arm around his, as he tells the group of people she's talking to that there's a book in the Royal Library that he's been considering looking over to draw more inspiration for battle strategies—has he thanked Historia lately about reinstating one?—and the Captain simply must come with him. Two pairs of eyes are better than one, after all, and who better to trust than his right hand?

He gives her a squeeze of the hand, and Historia grants them excuse, and they're off.

The fifth time, he locks the library door behind him, insists that he really is looking for this book, but that he'll find it after. After. He holds her at arm's length, and for a flicker of a moment it's almost like they're looking at each other as they people they knew when they were ten and eleven and twelve. The people they grew up with, read with, defended.

"Do you know how beautiful you look right now?" he asks, and Mikasa has to hide the flush that steals across the tops of her cheeks. 

"I could say the same," she manages. "Maybe not beautiful, but. Handsome. Intelligent." Like he really knows what he's talking about. Like a commander.

Armin smiles, genuinely, and begins to wind through bookshelves with his fingers woven with hers, until they're far enough in the library that no one will suspect anything if they're quiet. He holds her at a distance, again. Cages her in, again. Kisses her, again, but softly, taking his time. He leans in, makes sure she's watching him before their lips brush. Another inconvenient place, another inconvenient kiss.

"Wait," she breathes, and his hands stop at the small of her back, as if to ask if she wants to stop altogether. She doesn't, of course she doesn't, but she needs to look at him first, really look at him. "Why are we doing this?"

Armin purses his lips. "Right now?"

"At all." Mikasa presses her tongue hard against the roof of her mouth and holds her gaze, with her fingers curled around his forearms. "Why did we start this? When did we ever start needing this?"

Armin holds his breath; Mikasa can see his chest swell from it all. "I..." He pauses. "I don't know."

"I don't—" She pauses, just like him, neither of them the authorities they ever thought they were. "I don't think I know either."

He takes a step back, lets his hands slip from her body; Mikasa almost regrets it. "Does it feel wrong to do?"

For a while, neither of them speak, like they're supposed to answer this to themselves before they answer to each other. But Mikasa never imagined first times to pan out this way. Without thoughts, without a bed, without anything but the raw feeling that she needed another person, another sensation. Maybe middle times were supposed to be like this, against walls and in corners where they tried not to be found. Or the ends, where they tried to revive what little feelings were left.

"I need this," she says honestly, with a crack in her voice. "With you."

Armin looks at her like he's solving strategies in his head. Like he needs more time to think, and she gives it to him, with her heart pounding in her chest and the floor panels firm against her heels. He takes the step forward again, touches his forehead to hers, so their mouths and noses align just so. "I need this," he repeats. "With you."

Neither of them say why they need it. Maybe it's for a middle time. Maybe they don't have to say it. But he kisses her against lines of books, with the shelf and the spines digging into her back, and she shudders when his mouth strays toward her jaw, her shoulder, the crook of her neck. Hair spills against her skin, over her eyes, out of the small ponytail he's fashioned for himself. Mikasa briefly wonders if they made moving pictures about things like this too. About the questions and the silence and the uncertainty tucked away in an almost public place. If they closed in on people's bodies and the parts of them that shook with every kiss and every touch.

Fingers splay across skin, tug at ties and buttons and zippers until her dress is open at the back, and his shirt is open at the front, and they're taking the time to look at each other. The scars on his skin, the wayward freckles on her shoulders, the way her dress sags to reveal the tops of her breasts now that nothing is keeping the fabric taut. Like this is nudity, real nudity.

"They're probably looking for us now, aren't they?" Mikasa manages to say. Far from the smoothest thing, but smoothness was made for neither of them after a decade and a half.

Armin shrugs with his fingertips running up and down her sides; the look in his eye makes her think that maybe he can feel the shiver in her spine. "We're busy," he whispers, and seals his plans with a long kiss and a tighter grip on her dress.

They have a line to cross now, and they do so hand in hand. Or at least, they do so with her back to the books and his hands sliding under her dress, scaling the length and the ridges of her thighs until she allows him to lift her up.

It straddles something, meeting like this, the rub of her skin against the fabric of his suit, but maybe it leans more toward the "intimacy" side of things. She wouldn't mind it. Not with Armin, anyway, and if they need each other like this after all, then there might—would—be opportunities for beds, for slow, for horizontal love.

But Armin gives her the look like he knows she's thinking too much, like he's telling her that's his job (and of course it is), and she can't help but smile softly and kiss the wrinkle from his brow while she reaches for the buckle of his belt.

They feel out their need through more kisses, the scrape of teeth, the drag of tongues along skin in the most inconspicuous of places, as though they're both constantly aware of what goes on beyond the door. He rolls his hips, and she allows herself to whine and curl her fingers tight, to tip her head back and shudder at the feeling of his arousal between her legs. If she could grind back in this position, she would, but maybe the heave of her chest and the roll of her head is enough.

This time, the fifth time, Armin makes sure to look her in the eye when he slowly edges inside of her.


End file.
